Trump's immigration guidelines expected to be 'pretty seamless process' in St. Johns County

Jared Keever

Thursday

Feb 23, 2017 at 7:55 AM

With the Trump administration broadening the number of people living in the United States illegally who may be eligible for deportation, the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office is saying it doesn’t anticipate that any significant changes will have to be made locally in relation to the new guidelines.

"It really won’t change anything for us except maybe the numbers," Sheriff’s Office spokesman Chuck Mulligan told The St. Augustine Record on Wednesday. "The process for us is still the same."

Mulligan was talking about memos signed Tuesday by Homeland Security Department Secretary John Kelly.

Guidelines in those memos replace the "more narrow guidance" previously in place that focused largely on immigrants who have been convicted of serious crimes, are considered threats to national security or recently crossed the border, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.

The new Trump administration policies mean that any immigrant "who is in the country illegally and is charged or convicted of any offense, or even suspected of a crime, will now be an enforcement priority … " the AP story said. "That could include people arrested for shoplifting or minor offenses — or simply having crossed the border illegally."

Mulligan said that such an individual was arrested over the weekend and was used as an example of how the Sheriff’s Office would deal with those cases.

"The individual was stopped on a traffic stop," he said. "It was determined he was an impaired driver and he was arrested for DUI."

He didn’t have a driver’s license and presented the deputy with an identification card from another country, Mulligan said. He was also arrested on charges of driving without a license and possession of cocaine — all charges that would have prompted an arrest anyway.

"He was taken to the St. Johns County jail and because he could not identify where he was from, we just simply provide that name to Homeland Security and then they respond back to us whether or not they want a hold placed on him," Mulligan said.

Which is pretty much the way it has always worked, Mulligan said, adding that "what may change is the number of individuals that are asked to be held, so it should be a pretty seamless process."

Whether such a person is picked up immediately or left here to face charges, is really decided on a case-by-case basis between prosecutors and federal officials, depending on things like the nature of the alleged crimes.

With the new changes in place the only thing that could become burdensome for local officials is whether or not Homeland Security can promptly pick up the individuals they ask to be held. Not that the numbers here have ever been particularly high, but Mulligan said that, in the past, federal officials would fly in about once a week to round up inmates from area jails and take them to federal facilities.

Mulligan said he couldn’t — and wouldn’t want to — speculate whether that may change with the new rules. It is far too early to do that, he said, but did caution there could be some costs associated with holding someone for extended periods of time if officials couldn’t make the regular rounds with increased demand.

"Then obviously we are feeding and housing them and dealing with any medical issues, and we have to deal with those expenditures, but that is not normally how it has ever worked," he said.

There is no real crowding issue at the jail, and Mulligan said the Sheriff’s Office could handle any increased numbers, particularly since those numbers weren’t expected to spike here under the new rules.

"I don’t really see that in St. Johns County we have such a large body of individuals that might be illegal that will be arrested," he said. "Over the course of time we will see it, but I don’t think we will have a mass run on it. I don’t think we have those kinds of numbers."

Read this St. Augustine Record story.

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